Is the Truth On Trial? - Right Lean News - Left Lean News (1 Viewer)

[SaintsInDome2006]

I thought this NYT article was pretty good on the topic. 

Lies, Damned Lies and Washington   "As President Trump faces impeachment by the House, it is the very concept of truth that often seems to be on trial."

It feels like a pretty balanced look at a complicated topic.

Thanks for posting, actually I’ve been looking for that article.

 

[parasaurolophus]

Can a human being actually tell us "exactly what is happening"? Any human communication will only ever be a version of the truth, will it not?

Philosophically ... I am not sure human beings can perceive absolute truth. We would have to be completely 100% free of bias to access absolute truth, and no human is capable of that.

Agree with bold. 

But there are often very simple things that can be done to avoid risking presenting a very biased story. I read a story earlier about a kid that got suspended from school and the mom took to facebook to complain about the suspension. Story was picked up by lots of places. I thought to myself that reporting this story is completely irresponsible. 

You are presenting a story that you know you cannot vet from the moment you start digging into it. The school is not allowed to give you their side of the story or even give you names of anybody involved. 

The mom says that her son got suspended because after lots of torment and threats from a bully he finally snapped and fought back. Our hero was then punished with a 5 day suspension.

Such a story would suck if true, but it should never be reported by a responsible media. It's one thing if it was a shooting incident or some other scenario where you can argue a compelling need for the public to know from a general safety standpoint. But this doesn't not come even close to that threshold. This could have easily been a story concocted by a teenager that got in trouble at school and lied to his parents.    

But the media doesn't care about that, they hear the keyword "bullying" and they run with it, no matter how one sided it may be.